Friday, February 28, 2014

Pun: Excerpt from William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

1.     Explain the pun used in this passage. How does it contribute to the meaning of the scene and play?
In this passage, Romeo is determined to suck the fun out of everything because of his depressed and heart broken feelings. The whole conversation with Romeo admitting that he does not know how to dance, but now he changed his tone a bit more serious and said it wouldn’t be a great decision to go to this feast at all. Mercutio, his “cut-up” friend asks why, and Romeo tells him he had a dream btu he doesn’t specify what it was about. Mercutio then imitates Romeo and says he had a dream too and that it was about “dreamers often lie”. This is an extended pun, but when they talk about dreamers the reader does not know if they’re referring to dreamers actually lying by not saying the truth, or dreamers actually laying down as to go to sleep because of the use of wording in “lie”.

The way that this pun contributes to the scene is by calling Romeo a liar because he might not be saying the truth on whether he wants to go to the feast or not. That is why Romeo wittily replies with “In bed asleep, while they do dream things true”.  Clarifying that maybe as a dreamer, he still says the truth and dreams of nothing but the truth itself.

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